Inflation & prices

Sticky-price CPI isolates slow-to-adjust prices (rents, services) that forecast where inflation is heading more reliably than flexible items.

Trimmed-mean PCE removes outlier price moves to expose the central inflation tendency, a cleaner persistence signal than headline or core.

Broad producer/commodity PPI is an upstream cost gauge that leads consumer inflation and compresses margins before it reaches the shelf.

Final-demand PPI captures the prices producers receive at the end of the supply chain, a direct read on industrial pricing power and margins.

Core final-demand PPI shows underlying producer cost pressure excluding volatile inputs, signaling sustainable input-cost inflation.

Rent is the largest, stickiest CPI component, so its trajectory dominates core services inflation and shelter-driven cost pressure.

Grocery price inflation directly drives food-retailer and packaged-goods revenue/margin dynamics and consumer wallet share.

Energy CPI captures gasoline and utility price swings that hit household discretionary budgets and feed headline-inflation volatility.

Used-vehicle prices are a high-beta inflation swing factor that signals auto-sector demand, dealer margins, and lender collateral values.

Services CPI captures the labor-driven, sticky majority of the consumer basket that determines whether inflation durably returns to target.

Import prices measure the cost of foreign goods entering the US, a direct input to import-reliant retailer/manufacturer margins and FX pass-through.

Export prices gauge the pricing power and competitiveness of US producers abroad, informing exporter revenue and terms-of-trade dynamics.

The breakeven embeds the bond market's real-time expected inflation, a forward-looking signal that moves ahead of CPI prints and repricing risk.

The 5y5y forward strips near-term noise to reveal long-run inflation expectations the Fed watches for de-anchoring risk.

Industrial-commodity PPI tracks core manufacturing input costs (metals, chemicals, machinery), a leading indicator of factory margin pressure.

Consumer inflation expectations shape wage demands and spending behavior, a behavioral feedback signal that can entrench or break inflation.

Paper/packaging PPI is a direct input-cost gauge for packaging-intensive consumer and e-commerce supply chains, informing pass-through margins.

Services PPI isolates producer-side services inflation (trade, transport, finance) that feeds B2B pricing power and the sticky core trend.